Rich villians get lighter punishment, the Singapore Court is corrupted and there is no justice.
Or so, this is how many Singaporeans interpret Kong Hee’s appeal case. The high profile cheating case saw Kong Hee’s jail sentence of 8 years cut to less than half to only 3½ years, prompting waves of dissent against the Singapore judiciary and the government for letting off an unrepentant serial cheat.
Life savings were wiped out and a total of S$50 million were cheated to fund the pastor’s wife’s doomed singing career. The Singapore Court has not only delivered injustice by cutting his sentences, the judges even allowed him to enjoy Easter Holidays by deferring his jail sentence.
Who gets such preferential treatment? The rich of course.
Corruption is stamped all over the case with the Singapore Court bearing the brunt of the people’s wrath, and the blight is now spreading to the deputy public prosecutors and the government. PAP MP Edwin Tong’s position as Kong Hee’s defence lawyer highlighted that the PAP government is involved with the corruption.
Despite having harsh censorship laws and a complete control over the mainstream media, Singaporeans are risking defamation lawsuits and contempt of court charges to call the government and court corrupted. The more careful ones jest that it is time to start a church in Singapore, while the most timid simply sat quiet. One thing for sure, nobody is defending the government and the Singapore Court except for the few usual regular faceless government trolls on the internet.
A good sign actually. Singaporeans are beginning to see through the veil of incorruptibility the authorities put up, and they are getting vocal about it. However such public display of resistance will warrant only more oppressive responses from the PAP government and the court. A few chickens would be slaughtered over the next few days to warn the rest that dissent is not to be tolerated, as foretold by Law Minister K Shanmugam on independent news websites.